Not to sound cheesy, but I have recently been reminded that every moment given to us is a gift. That every moment your lungs expand in your chest is a moment you choose to do something with. You can choose to use it to finish a project; you can choose to use it to spend time with a friend; you can choose to use it to simply do some much-needed “veg-ing”.

I remember sitting in my senior Bible class as my teacher described his day. This guy was crazy, wonderful, but crazy. He was a teacher, a soccer coach, a husband, a father to a young daughter, AND in the process of getting his master’s degree. After he described his normal crazy day, he looked each one of us in the eye and said, “You can do a lot more in your day if you just plan it.”

And I cringed. Because I hated the idea of scheduling every minute of every day of my life. I like more spontaneity than that.

But, ten years later, I’m discovering I have to do just that in order to get everything I need to, done.

And I wonder why, because I was just as busy in college, I swear, and I didn’t plan everything out. But see, I went to a little college in the middle of nowhere with horrible TV reception. And the college didn’t offer cable. So I didn’t watch TV. And Facebook had only just come to campus. It wasn’t nearly the time-killer that it can be now. There were no games, not nearly as many people on it, no adds – I’m not even sure we had pictures…

I think that’s the difference between my college days and now. Wasting time in college meant going on a Walmart run with friends when I could’ve been studying, or watching a movie and doing homework at the same time. Or just having a really good conversation. All of which are things that energize me. TV and Facebook don’t really give me more energy – ever.

So that’s what I’m challenging you to. NOT that you schedule every moment of every day if you don’t want to. But, that you do take note of your time, what you do. Watch for the activities that are fun, that inspire you to do more, to work harder. Do more of those. And spend less time doing the “easy” vegging things that waste your time and don’t really refresh you. For me, that’s TV and Facebook – for you…it might be texting or playing video games or sleeping…I don’t know! That’s for you to figure out!

Just remember that every breath you are given is actually very precious, and I doubt when we get to heaven we’re going to look back on our lives and wish we’d watched one more episode, or posted one more picture. But I doubt we’ll regret having those good conversations, and doing the work we were called to do, and making ourselves and others laugh.